


comes and goes

by braigwen_s



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: (Nobody Dies Tho), Angst and Feels, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love/Hate, Missing Scene, Support, Swearing, alternate POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2019-09-30 23:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17232890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braigwen_s/pseuds/braigwen_s
Summary: Katara can't heal Amon's de-bending.  This has implications for more people present than Korra; while the Avatar runs to the cliffs, Lin Beifong retreats to her borrowed room.  Korra returns sooner, and with news.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angstlairde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstlairde/gifts).



> written for the prompt "uneven scales". crossposted to tumblr (@depabillabaa or @linsbeifong).

It was heavy, her armor. Every plate was solid and thick steel, molded by her own bending. Any attempt to put it on or take it off without that bending would be idiocy.

Lin never was known for her wisdom, and Amon’s decimation of - not of her life, just of her way of it, her way of it and one of her six senses - hadn’t exactly helped to improve things. The armor reacted to heat, as well, expanding under the blazing sun, stretching so that it didn’t scorch her thin. The cold, naturally, was the opposite, shrinking it tightly around her until it dug into all her scars and bruises. 

The South Pole wasn’t her preferred holiday destination at the best of times, but now -

Oh, fuck, and it hurt her chest, she could hardly breathe.. she was used to hardship, misfortune was practically her battlecry, but this, this was almost more than she could bear. The first tear escaped, and she let it, and she collapsed onto the fur mats in the room lent to her and sobbed, wracking and deep, as her fingers groped to the stone floor before she remembered it wouldn’t speak to her, and then crying harder. She fumbled with the clasps on her bracers again, but her fingers were numb and slipped off, so she curled back into the fetal position, hopelessness threatening to bury her.

There was a knock at the door; she sat bolt upright, biting her lip to keep from crying out in pain. There was no weapon she could reach for, like she always did when startled, and her hands curled uncertainly into awkward fists. “Who is it and what do you want?”

“I’m so sorry,” said Tenzin quickly… stupid airhead must’ve forgotten she couldn’t see through the floor anymore.

“What do you want?” she repeated, and he cleared his throat and opened the door a little. He was - smiling?

Yes, he was, smiling like he was trying his hardest not to but couldn’t damn help himself. The tears were frozen on her face; she scraped the frost off. “Spit it out,” she said, then, to her shame, remembered Korra had run off towards the cliffs. She must’ve come back; fuck, she’d been wallowing in self-pity when all the others would have been petrified the avatar was about to commit suicide.

“Korra’s back,” he said, and she wanted to yell at him, to slam the door, but her vocal chords were torn and frozen, and she could hardly stand, let alone walk - 

But then he continued, and the implication was clear in his voice when he murmured, quiet yet intense with emotion, “and so’s her bending!”

Her mind blanked, for a moment. She’d spent her whole life with the scales weighted against her, but somehow here, in Tenzin’s stupid fucking smiling face, was a miracle. An actual miracle. And it wasn’t for politicians, or for the triads, nor even just for any of the kids and heroes that she shouldn’t begrudge miracles to. It was for her. In Tenzin’s stupid fucking face, and in his arm stretched out towards her.

She grabbed it, used it as a lever, pulled herself upright. She would’ve burst into tears again if she’d had enough liquid left in her.

A miracle in Tenzin’s stupid fucking face, and in the loud, showy hooligan of a child that was the Avatar. And she’d have to thank her now, goddammit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movings forward and backward, bending, and the return thereof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. There's a Part II.

Tenzin helped her into a coat, slipping the sleeves over her arms and letting her balance against his shoulder. She saw his face tighten when he cuffed the left sleeve, and knew he’d seen the half-opened, dented buckle. He didn’t mention it, and she was grateful. He didn’t mention the nostalgic sort of similarity to a life well and truly gone, either, the way holding out the lady’s coat still came far too natural to them both. She was grateful for that, too. Some things should never be dredged up.

He offered her his arm for the hallway, before they got outside to where Korra and everyone else was standing. Because there were no witnesses, and because right now she hated him less than usual, she accepted.

Walking was a painful business, but the promise of the Earth back would have propelled her if she’d had two broken legs.

 “Please tell me you’ll let my mother look at you, after.” There was real worry in his voice. This aspect of Tenzin had always somewhat bemused her. He was Aang’s child with his bending, but in tone, in mood, in speech? In temper quick to rise and fall with tides? In businesslike unspoken service? That man was all Katara’s. She wondered if he knew it. If he did, then he wouldn’t be glad about it. Not that she didn’t understand the sentiment, but Katara was a good person and good mother. Heritage from her was not something to be ashamed of.  Not that his family was her business, any more. Arrested Avatar excluded.

"Lin,” he said, and she lurched back upright just before her knees buckled.

“What?”

His hand was firm but gentle on her side, and this time he spoke with the clipped impatience that always poorly hid his emotions. “After Korra brings your bending back, Lin, you have to let my mother look at you.”

“Fine.”

“You will?”

She was dizzy, and terrified, and nauseous, and so, so tired. Why must he make her repeat herself? Just for a moment, she let her head loll to the side, but she snapped it up again before he could make comment. “Yes, Tenzin. I will.” Anything to make him shut up. Already, the wind was biting her face and fingers, constricting her armor like an old can. Lin hated the cold, so much. “Why can’t she do it inside?” she grumbled, though she knew the answer full well. Some things had to be done in open air, and she knew from Uncle Aang energybending was among them. Something about lack of barriers, and respect, and invitation and clarity. Lin never had been a spiritual person.

“There’s not much stone inside the house,” he said, with an odd guilty-amused undercurrent. “And my mother values her cooking pots.” And that, yes. She’d damn well want to know if it had worked without having to move again.

Just before the open doorway, she shrugged him off, ignoring his hissed warnings about her pride. She would have ignored him anyway, but this wasn’t about pride. If she was going to get herself back, she would not walk there any way but alone. She _could_ not walk there any way but alone.  
(She still wasn’t a spiritual person. Some things were just common sense.)  Her limbs were hard to move, and she could feel herself swaying, but she took a deep breath and walked right to the Avatar. She didn’t falter.

Kneeling before Her was, admittedly, harder.

 

Korra’s palm touched her hair, and thumb touched her forehead, and she felt her own heartrate spike as bile leapt into her throat. It was the same position that Amon had taken, only in front of her, not behind. Of all the foolish fears to have - she had nothing left she could be stripped of, and. And.

Her vision was obscured with blazing white, and she realized that there was something else that she could lose, she could become like her mother -

He was there. She could see him, see - see Avatar Aang. Uncle. His beard was dark, and he was smiling, and he looked - well, he did look transparent, but in a spirit-y kind of way, not the faded being that she had last seen him as, the day he’d died. He looked like he had when she was young, before her life had become a ritual of falling over and over. He looked alive. “Lin,” he mouthed, and spread his arms. The blazing white faded, just in time for her to notice Korra’s eyes returning to blue.

 

She could hear the stone platform. She could hear the earth under the snow and permafrost, and it was whispering to her: _welcome back welcome back welcome back_.

She could hear the stones that had been set up, too. She drew strength from the earth and stood - this time, she didn’t even stumble, just came smoothly to her feet. She stretched her arms out, and they lifted. They lifted. They lifted. She lowered them back down, replaced them on the patches of snow that their pressure had crushed to ice.

She slid the sole of her boot back - she could slide it back! She could metalbend again, not just earthbend, her fears had been needless! She slid the sole of her boot back, and placed her foot on the platform. The shockwave showed her, as it travelled, every single person there. The pain in all her muscles and bones remained, but now she could stand regardless. Her strength was stone, her stone was strength, and both of them had returned to her.

 Miracle of miracles.

 Now she could get that damn armor off.


End file.
